258 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS 



active, and start on the move a few minutes after being hatched. 

 Their down is dark with three longitudinal cream-coloured stripes, 

 and both parents accompany them — indeed, one very unsports- 

 manlike way of capturing old birds is to dig a hole, catch some 

 of the little innocents, and put them in, when the parents soon 

 jump down to them, and a cloth is thrown over the lot. 



Eastern or Blcwitt's Painted Bush-Quail. 



*Micrope7-dix hlewitti. Sirsi loiva, Hindustani. 



This race of red-legged or painted bush-quail found in the 

 Eastern Central Provinces, where the ordinary kind does not 

 occur, differs from the type in no important particular, and here 

 again I wonder Hume wasted a plate on it ; the result was not 

 happy, as the legs and bills of the birds are there represented as 

 yellow, whereas they ought to be red — a mistake of the artist's, of 

 course. The distinguishing points, as usual in a local race as 

 compared to a true species, are merely comparative ; a smaller 

 beak, greyer tone of plumage, dull pinkish tinge over the abdomen, 

 instead of only on the breast and along the flanks as in the 

 typical form, greater extension of the white on the head of the 

 cock at the expense of the black face and crown, and finally 

 smaller size, w^hich barely reaches two and a quarter ounces, 

 while in the other race it runs from this to over three. It was 

 said by Blewitt, the sender of the first specimens to Hume, to 

 be delicate and well-flavoured. 



He also found that it went in coveys of sometimes more than 

 a dozen, living in forest, grass, and scrub on hilly ground. He 

 noted, from native information, the breeding-season as November 

 to January, but Thompson gives it as June and July, soon after 

 the rains begin, the young flying in September. The fact 

 probably is that this race and the typical one both breed at 

 any time which local conditions make convenient for them. 

 Thompson's note, however, that the male in the courting-time 

 often repeats a loud single note, is worth quoting, and also his 



• Perdicula on plate. 



